Playing without a bat

The PTI will be going into the general election without its election symbol of the ‘bat’. The final decision about the PTI’s election symbol was announced late last night by the Supreme Court in its unanimous verdict on the ECP’s petition against the Peshawar High Court’s January 10 order that restored the PTI’s electoral symbol of the ‘bat’. A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa had heard the case. The saga of the ‘bat’ has been going on since December 22 when the ECP had barred the PTI from keeping its election symbol for the February elections. The electoral body had said that the PTI’s internal polls did not comply with the party’s constitution and election laws. Following a challenge by the PTI to the ECP’s decision, the Peshawar High Court had granted the party temporary relief, reinstating the symbol, and referring the case to a larger bench for a hearing on January 9. On December 30, the ECP challenged the PHC’s jurisdiction but then the PHC ended up reversing its earlier decision. Saturday’s case in the Supreme Court was to be the final appeal in the PTI’s election symbol pursuit – though the PTI has said it will be asking for a review of the verdict.

At the heart of the case was the question of whether the ECP had the jurisdiction to withdraw a party’s election symbol, Section 215 of the Election Act 2017 coming under review during the proceedings. The ECP had argued that intraparty polls details have to be submitted by every party to the ECP which then sees if the process was conducted according to law and election rules. It had been argued that the PTI had held its intraparty polls secretly and not per the rules laid down by the party’s own constitution. According to legal experts, per the letter of the law, the PTI was quite in danger of losing its symbol – given the back and forth between the party and the ECP regarding its intraparty polls. However, legal experts had also cautioned against taking away the party’s symbol, arguing that while the Elections Act does have the condition of a party holding intraparty elections, the constitution in Article 17(2) guarantees the right to form a political party and the Supreme Court has in previous cases interpreted this right as also including the right to operate as a political party. By most legal estimations, a legislation should not override this right, especially since the law does not explicitly hand the ECP the power to deny an electoral symbol on the basis of irregularities in the intraparty polls. Political activists had also said that denying a political party its election symbol could be seen as a way to deplatform its functioning as a unified entity in an electoral exercise. How would voters vote for PTI candidates if they all were to get separate election symbols? Would this not be tantamount to taking away the mandate from the PTI’s voter?

The PTI has been alleging an unequal playing field from the start of the electoral process. On Saturday, the party again raised this point when the ECP gave the order that ROs should refrain from allotting the electoral symbol of a party other than which the candidate belongs to. This came right after the PTI implemented its Plan B: asking its candidates to submit their nomination papers under the name of another party – PTI-Nazriati (PTI-N) – with which the PTI says it had reached an agreement in December over allowing its candidates to contest polls under the PTI-N’s symbol. In (yet) another twist on Saturday, the PTI-N claimed that the PTI candidates submitted ‘fake’ nomination papers.

Now that the bat is gone, what options does the PTI have? While the party will use its right to a review appeal, for now its candidates will now be contesting as independents, with their separate election symbols. This is a huge blow to the party, since these candidates will now not be bound by the rule of party discipline either. Legal analysis will have more to offer on the verdict but for now, the PTI will face an uphill task in getting its candidates to not just contest but win and then stay within party discipline. With this last case heard, it is onwards to the elections now – which would only mean something if they are free, fair, without fear or favour. A tall order given the context in which things are proceeding.